REBELLION OF PROVINCIAL TOWNS

Protests in Serbia

Although Belgrade, not only because it is the capital, but also as the ever lasting model and the city of decisive political movements, is playing the main role in the developments again, a reliable sign that in Serbia after the latest elections, nothing will be as it used to be are the happenings in the provinces - in 46 Serbian towns

AIM Belgrade, 9 January, 1997

On the first day of the New 1997, and on the 44th day of the Belgrade protests caused by invalidation of the local election results, leaders of the opposition coalition Together, proudly stressed that along with Belgrade, protests are going on in another 46 towns and places in Serbia, and the picture of squares where hundreds thousand people are making deafening noise and lighting fireworks was seen by the entire universe. Serbia has once again shocked the world. Because, it would have really been necessary to be a prophet to forecast that in a country in which the regime of Slobodan Milosevic was not seriously shaken even by dissolution of former Yugoslavia, the four-year war in which he had played the leading role, the sanctions imposed by the international community and almost complete economic collapse - the main political perpetuum mobile would be local elections.

Although the first serious signal that the political atmosphere in the interior of Serbia was significantly changing was a wave of massive workers' strikes which shook two large and mostly workers' cities - Nis and Kragujevac - just before the federal and the local elections in Serbia, hardly anybody believed that just two months later almost whole Serbia would be on its feet. Especially since just two weeks before the by now historical 17 November, the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) had won a decisive victory in the federal elections. The effort of the opposition to attract notice of its voters by an aggressive street campaign despite complete blockade in the media, and convince them about the significance of winning power on the local level, but also the cruel reality which is quite contrary to the idyllic life presented on TV screens, resulted unexpectedly for many in the so far the greatest response of the electorate whose main credo was: CHANGE!

Results which were coming in and withdrawal of SPS election staffs behind locked doors before midnight were the first sign that this time even the absolute monopoly of the media had not helped the Socialists (indeed, it is claimed that it had even returned to them as a boomerang), nor the forged electoral register, and not even kick-boxers who in some places "guarded" the polling boxes. "Adjustment" of results at the expense of the opposition spread, so that the great victory of the opposition in quite an unbelievable manner, yet unseen in the world and the judiciary, the victory was turning into a defeat hour after hour. The developments showed that this latest theft in a row expressed in the flagrant deprivation of the franchise was the drop that spilt the glass and caused a fundamental shift in the minds of the people, turned the opposition street celebration into so far the biggest, massive, the longest and it seems the gravest protests against the regime.

Theft of Votes as a Detonator

Although Belgrade, not only as the capital, but also as the everlasting ideal and the city of decisive political movements has in the latest developments played one of the main roles, the reliable sign that after these elections in Serbia nothing will be as before is what is happening in the interior of the country.

The leftist coalition formed in the past elections by parties headed by the couple Milosevic-Markovic won mostly in villages, small towns and places with about ten thousand inhabitants at the most, which mainly live off the land. Completely economically ruined cities, life on the verge of poverty, made even traditionally "red" cities, and even southern strongholds of the Socialists, turn their backs to Milosevic and especially to despotism of local power wielders.

Therefore, theft of votes was in fact just a detonator which started a big fire of general discontent first and foremost with one's own situation, and then with absence of fundamental accomplishments of civilization - independent institutions, primarily the judiciary and media.

Shoo Slobo, Shoo, We Will Not Give you Nis

When he wishes to explain to numerous foreign journalists that the protests due to nullification of local elections in Serbia developed into a democratic revolution, Zoran Djindjic, President of the Democratic Party (DS) and one of the leaders of the Together coalition, stresses as the most important quality awakening of the Serbian provincial towns and to a question what is the most important thing about Belgrade demonstrations - he answers: Nis! Reaction of Belgrade protesters expressed by thunderous chanting whenever this largest city in southern Serbia is mentioned shows that this opinion is shared by almost all participants in the protest.

The city famous for its tower built by the Turks of sculls of their victims until recently was a symbol of a Socialist bulwark which had its own local vizier, Mile Ilic

• the "master of the city" in whose presence the people almost literally bowed. Great poverty, interruption of operation of the largest enterprises (such as the Electronic Industries which employs thousands workers) and opposite to this, magnificent buildings built as "monuments during lifetime" to local power-wielders who did not even try to conceal their luxurious life enabled by abuse of their political position, made the disposition of the people change altogether.

The most frantic theft of votes which occurred in this city, was the final turning point, the glove thrown in the face of the people fed up with arrogance of Nis Socialists, personality cult and "dirty hands". Temperament of southerners, known for its inertia and sudden flaring up which then cannot be subdued resulted, among other, in students' 236 km long "walk" to Belgrade and a lesson which Nis students gave President Milosevic. Refusal to shake hands with him in the end reflects the climate which is much more threatening in Nis than in Belgrade. There is not much whistling and noise making there, no the carnival boisterousness which absorbs wrath. Here, even the slogan "Shoo, Slobo, Shoo, we will not give you Nis" is not understood as wittiness of the protesters, but as the first demand that the demonstrations must end with the resignation of Slobodan Milosevic. Resoluteness of Nis oppositionists to go to the end is best illustrated by the serious tone of the joke of one of the Nis opposition leaders and the most popular, according to polls, citizen of Nis, Zoran Zivkovic: "We have reached an agreement with CNN not to leave our city, because, if the regime refuses to return what is stolen, they will have exclusive films of a civil war which will certainly start here, in Nis".

The police has obviously had the feeling for the awakened southern blood, because Nis, although it was the first city where police cordons have prevented the people from breaking into the municipal building, now is the only city where the police is not preventing protest walks, but on the contrary, in cooperation with representatives of Together coalition secures the protesting procession and prevents any possible incidents. That is why it is not surprising that the head of Nis police in the mentioned popularity poll ranked the third.

Pirot has also found its specific quality of the protest in its relation to the police. While leaders of the opposition coalition joked by saying that they had never doubted that proverbially stingy Piroters would fight for everything that was stolen from them, therefore, for election votes as well, the Piroters tried to oppose numerous policemen whose task in this town is to prevent protest walks also by jokes. Prevented in their walks, as part of the protest Piroters organized an evening of dance in which the ladies chose their partners among the members of special police units.

Principle of connected vessels on the example of three "K"

The "specialty" of Kraljevo in the beginning of the protest was that the struggle for the won and soon after denied election victory was initiated by republican deputies of the parties of Together coalition by a hunger strike in the municipality building. This happened even before the post-election night when in Belgrade their colleagues from the capital shut themselves in the building of the Serbian Assembly. There were just a few thousand most ardent supporters of the opposition in the streets of the two cities at the time. Two months later, surrounded by police cordons, in "prisoners' walk", a quarter of the total number of the citizens of this city participate in the protest. Therefore, Kraljevo, which was in the focus of interest on several occasions, once for drawn knives, but also for its roasted ox on New Year's eve, proudly stresses the fact that after two months of protests, in which about 15 out of 60 thousand inhabitants participate, there are not only undecided voters, but even supporters of the so-called left coalition among the protesters.

It was not difficult to forecast that in Kragujevac, the fifth according to the number of inhabitants, and perhaps the first according to poverty, city in Serbia, the opposition would win the local elections. However, there were few who assumed that the protests "near the monument" would continue even after the opponents of the regime tested in a few-months lasting strikes managed to force the regime to admit that the Kragujevac assembly belongs to the opposition. Aware that only massive solidarity may instil power in the rebellion, thousands of citizens of Kragujevac, transformed their protest walks into walks of support, convinced that what has happened in Kragujevac must happen in whole of Serbia, and that it must feel what Kragujevac has experienced.

According to the principle of connected vessels, the "infection" of protest walks which has affected Serbia in the past two months did not miss even the places where the Socialists have won in the local elections. Although, for instance in Krusevac, the Socialists have won thanks to the manner in which the electoral district was "cut" (since in the final relation of forces, votes from the villages away from this industrial city even up to 30-40 kilometres played the decisive role), supporters of the opposition in the beginning could do nothing but joke on their own account and, instead of saying that they live in this much larger city, they preferred to say that they were from a place near the oppositionist Trstenik. Awareness of "the large dirty game", lack of information about developments in their country and specific awakening of the people, resulted after a week in protest gatherings in the centre of the city.

A group of 500 most courageous citizens of Krusevac, grew in just about ten days to 4 to 5 thousand protesters who modified the Belgrade recipe of expressing discontent by throwing eggs at buildings of state-controlled media according to their specific situation. Eager for information, citizens of Krusevac learnt about the protests in Serbia via satellite television stations, but the Socialist leaders were convinced that the local TV Jefimija was responsible for this, which was forced to interrupt broadcasting although it was specialized for entertainment and film. That is why the citizens threw eggs at the municipal building instead at the building of the television station, and protest walks became an everyday occurrence.

The Avalanche Syndrome

Protests in lowland Voivodina, which is peaceful and disinclined to protests, show that once it is started, it is impossible to stop an avalanche. In view of the fact that generally speaking the Socialists have fared very poorly in the elections in the northern province, re-shaping of election results was not only obvious over here, but it was also repeated several times. In Vrsac, for example, the city electoral commission invalidated some results, municipal courts nullified the others, the Supreme Court invalidated the results of the city electoral commission, and then repeated the elections for as long as it was necessary for the Socialists to win at least a tight victory. In the fifth (!) election round, even patients of the psychiatric clinic participated in the elections, and since even that attempt failed, it seems that Vrsac will reach Dante's ninth round. Vrsac, but also Sombor, Kikinda, Pancevo and other traditionally peaceful towns in Voivodina were therefore "drawn into" street protests and this time they are resolute to fight for the votes even more than for their wheat.

(AIM) Bojana Lekic